Original subtitles

(peaceful orchestra and vocal music)

(suspenseful music)

- [Narrator] This is Moses.

(woman screaming)

A man born on the sentence of death.

- [Pharaoh] Every son that is born

shall be cast into the river.

- [Narrator] But who lived to be raised as a prince

in the magnificent court of the most powerful empire

the world has ever seen.

(triumphant music)

(whip cracking)

Then he saw the sufferings

of a people, (man yelling)

a people deprived, brutalized, enslaved,

and he chose to put off his princely garments

and become one of them.

- [Man] Your name?

- I'm an Israelite. (man screaming)

- [Narrator] He suffered long and bitterly.

- I'm sick of you!

- [Narrator] Before his people and the enemies of his people

saw in his eyes the light of God's will

and heard in his voice the thunder of God's utterance.

(waves crashing)

(horse whinnying)

(horses galloping)

(tribal music)

He had to fight against the weakness of man,

and the wickedness of man before he found himself free

to change the whole course

of our history. (choral music)

- We must start again.

- [Narrator] But above all, he taught men

that they were free.

- We are free even to choose,

to enter into a covenant with Him.

- [Narrator] This is Moses, a man like us

with our weaknesses and doubts but also with our hopes.

- I would like to cross the river.

- [Narrator] Moses who spoke to God in the high places.

(peaceful orchestral music)

The Israelites dwelt in the land of Canaan,

but drought and famine ravaged the land

and they went into Egypt.

They prospered and the Israelite Joseph

was a prince of the land.

Now these are the names of the children of Israel

which came into Egypt,

every man and his household came with Jacob.

Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah,

Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin,

Dan, and Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.

And all the souls that came out of the loins of Jacob

were 70 souls, for Joseph was in Egypt already.

And Joseph died and all his brethren

and all that generation.

(sheep bleating) (peaceful flute music)

And the children of Israel were fruitful

and increased abundantly and multiplied

and waxed exceedingly mighty

and the land was filled with them.

- [Boy] Is that Joseph?

- It could be Joseph.

- [Boy] Is he a god?

- He could be a god, the Egyptians had many gods.

(gong chimes)

- [Narrator] Now there rose up a new king over Egypt

which knew not Joseph and he said unto his people,

behold the people of the children of Israel

are more and mightier than we.

- Their men are bursting with seed.

Their women are round like fruit.

Their encampments are loud with the bleating of children.

They multiply, they multiply.

- [Man] Your Grace has some immediate danger in mind?

- War, should there be war with some alien people,

might not these aliens in our midst

join with our enemies?

Let us defend ourselves before we are attacked.

- Your divine majesty's immediate orders?

- [Pharaoh] I specify nothing, I say deal wisely with them,

use immediate wisdom.

- Are you of the tribe of Levi?

- Yes, we are.

(metal sword clinks)

(horses whinnying) (men yelling)

(people screaming)

- [Man] Don't scratch my ankle.

(tent crashing)

- Ah!

(sheep bleating) (men yelling)

- [Man] Let's go!

- [Man] Keep moving now.

- Get them moving!

- [Man] Keep moving!

(men yelling) (children crying)

Keep moving!

- [Man] Get up!

Get up, now!

(children crying)

Let's go, keep moving!

- You can't cram us in here.

We're shepherds! - Will you keep

moving! - We're shepherds,

we live on the open plains.

If you shut us up here,

we'll die! - You won't die,

you'll work!

- [Narrator] So Amram and his wife Yokebed

and their son Aaron and their daughter Miriam

entered the house of bondage,

and Yokebed was heavy with child.

(child crying) They were made to share

quarters with people from other tribes.

The children of Israel who had lived the life of shepherds,

free in the free air, now they were slaves.

(march-like orchestral music)

Therefore did they set over them taskmasters

to afflict them and to burden them,

and they were set to build for the Pharaoh treasure cities

and the names of the cities were Pithom and Ramses.

- [Man] On your feet!

Get over here.

(whips cracking)

- You go out and feed the animals,

and Miriam you go help her.

That's a good girl.

(contemplative flute music)

(chickens clucking)

(sheep bleating)

- [Miriam] It's sinful to wear a thing like that,

an Egyptian thing.

It's sinful! - Ooh, let me go!

- It's sinful! - Stop touching me!

- What are you doing to her, what are you doing to her?

Every day the same thing.

- Aaron won't show them their sinful ways, not Aaron.

But he will.

- Ah, so that's the way of it, I wonder.

- I thought he would be born in Tabris,

in the tall green pastures there.

We would have been there in three months,

the third fullness of the moon.

- You say he, you both say that!

- All babies are called he before they are born,

and some of them afterwards too.

(group laughs)

- [Pharaoh] The sons of the men of the sand,

the name diminishes them but they are not diminished.

Continue. (march-like gong music)

- [Man] Majesty, they came out of the land of Canaan,

driven by plague and famine.

In Egypt they sought grain and pasture,

and found them both.

They grow fat and multiply

and are become an immense multitude.

In order that they may not, in the event of war,

unite with our enemies without.

- So is it written.

So shall our posterity read it.

But the sentence is not yet complete.

Let me hear wisdom.

- This present mode of oppression

is clearly inefficacious.

As I see it, the Tribes of Israel

mingled together as they are lose each its special code

of law and restraint.

Constrained from above, they are grown loose beneath.

Adultery, lechery, incest,

the zest for breeding.

It is the mark of a slave race, animality.

They couple like the dogs of the desert.

- And we,

we guard a instability, changelessness,

power, along comes the god of death

and says behold I am all these things.

But the sentence remains unfinished.

Let the sentence now be pronounced.

(staccato orchestra chords)

Every son that is born

shall be cast into the river.

But every daughter shall be saved alive.

(group screaming and crying)

(babies crying)

- [Man] Checked all the houses!

(group crying and screaming)

- [Man] That way, put 'em in there!

Found another.

- Keep this woman back.

(children crying)

- [Man] Take the next street.

Search the outhouses too!

(children crying and screaming)

(group crying and screaming)

- [Woman] Give me my son!

- My son! - No!

(Yokebed restlessly moaning)

- Ah! (moaning and crying)

- Shh!

Forgive me, forgive me, my love.

Someone may hear.

I trust no one.

My love, my dear love.

(footsteps rattling)

There's a stable near here, you'll be safe.

No one will know, no one will see, come.

(Yokebed moaning and crying) - Come, come!

(suspenseful drums)

- Be brave, he must live!

We are safe here.

(children crying)

(Yokebed moaning and screaming)

(somber orchestral music)

(children screaming and crying)

(baby cooing)

- [Narrator] And the child was kept hidden

from the cruelty of the soldiers of the Pharaoh,

but could not be kept hidden

for long. (baby cooing)

- [Woman] When does she come back, your mother?

- She still has the fever.

She sends love and greetings,

but begs no one to come near her.

The fever is catching.

(chickens clucking)

(cow lowing)

- [Narrator] Now Miriam, the child's sister,

had a plan of her own devising

whereby the baby might be saved

from the hands of the soldiers of the Pharaoh.

(baby cooing)

- Can you breathe?

(baby cooing)

(dramatic drum music)

- [Narrator] Now the Pharaoh had a daughter,

the Princess Bithnish, and she was barren

and she would come down to the Nile to pray

to the gods of increase that she might become a mother

and so be blessed.

(dramatic flute and march-like drum music)

(baby crying)

- Be brave, be very brave.

You must live, you have a lot to do, shh.

(baby cooing)

(basket splashing in water)

(baby crying and cooing)

♪ Lord of the river

♪ And of that quickening mud

♪ When some manner of lowly things ♪

♪ Are brought to burn

♪ Bring oh Lord to thy servant

♪ The gift of fecundity

♪ That she

♪ Be not despised

♪ Among the lowlier

♪ Daughters of the earth

♪ Lift her

♪ To the ranks of the mothers

♪ You nourish the reed and tamarind ♪

♪ The date palm and the tree

♪ From whose mud the crocodile breeds ♪

♪ Many toothed

♪ Strong as a chariot

- What is that?

Go and bring it to me, quick!

Before they river takes it again.

(birds chirping)

(baby crying)

- Who is he, where does he come from?

- He's well fed, have you seen all those rings of fat?

- Why is he here?

Who is his mother?

- The Nile is his father, anyway.

(baby crying)

- Shh, don't cry.

♪ Out of the desert

♪ The wind blows strong

♪ But cold, but cold

♪ From out of the sea

♪ The desert burns

♪ And the day is long

♪ But night sends my loved one

♪ Back to me

- He's hungry!

He's a good baby, he only cries because he's hungry.

- Who are you?

Who let you in here?

- Call the guards! - Wait!

Come here, girl.

(baby cooing)

Do you know this child?

- I am an Israelite, I know no men children.

The Egyptians kill them at birth.

- How do you know this child is a boy?

(baby crying)

Do you know his mother?

- I know many mothers who weep for their sons

and whose breasts are heavy with milk.

- You can find me a nurse among the women

of the Israelites.

- [Miriam] Yes, one who weeps.

- Bring her for my son.

(baby crying) For he is my son

and his father is the Nile.

His name shall be Moses, meaning my son.

- Meaning in our language

I brought him forth.

(contemplative flute and march-like drum music)

- I am sorry that your little boy died.

- Was killed!

- We mothers

cannot easily understand

high state policy.

We are the givers of life,

daughters of the sun.

Men turn their backs on the sun to build labyrinths

away from the light.

The labyrinths breed strange monsters.

These become the gods of darkness.

Men love their dark gods.

(baby cooing)

You will come back here in four hours.

You will be paid, of course.

- Each time you feed the child,

you receive one of these.

(coins clinking)

- [Woman] What is so special

about her son? - Why should her child

be saved? - I don't see why he should

be saved? - And none of ours.

- [Woman] She sold her child to the Egyptians.

- [Woman] For money.

(chickens clucking)

- Perhaps--

- Perhaps what?

- That old God of Abraham is waking up

after his long sleep.

- You mean?

- Perhaps the child has been saved not for his parents,

but for us.

(man spitting) - Whore!

(people chattering) (chicken clucking)

- What name have they given him?

- Moses.

- Moses.

(peaceful orchestra music)

When he is done with your breast,

he shall be wholly mine.

You will forget him,

forget him completely.

Forever.

- [Narrator] And Moses was raised

in the court of the Pharaoh and learned the arts

and the skills of a true Prince of Egypt.

(horse hooves clopping)

- The body is a mystery like the heavens.

(Bithnish heavily breathing)

If we could turn for a moment the skin,

the flesh to glass, then we could see

the wonders of the streets of the city within.

(Bithnish heavily breathing)

The streets are sometimes roaring with evil invaders.

Then we talk of a sickness.

Here are two roads that lead to the citadel of your lungs.

If I could clear these infested ways,

you'd be well again.

(Bithnish heavily breathing)

Does this help you, Mother?

(Bithnish heavily breathing)

- They tell me that you love wisdom,

but not all the time.

Your senses get in the way.

You hear the cry of the bats,

and of the field mice. (exhales)

They say, Moses, that you become impatient.

- Impatient, sometimes.

They say the wisdom of Egypt is complete and sealed.

That there is no new wisdom to be learned,

that the death of a man means more

than the birth of a child.

For what new wisdom can a child bring to the world.

Egypt looks to the end, the closure,

the seal.

- You do not see things as an Egyptian does,

as a true Egyptian does.

They want certainty.

Death is all too certain.

- If it's so certain then why is it not more simple?

It's expressed through so many gods,

hawk-faced, dog-faced, crocodile-toothed.

It's a darkness crawling with silent monsters.

- Give me light, Moses.

Light the torches.

- The sun is not yet down.

- Light them just the same, I fear the dark.

I fear the dark.

I will embark on a boat

whose name is the name of the god

of the harvest of the souls.

I am ferried to the western bank of the river,

and there I find a secret way into the earth.

I am going to the river,

and you were brought out of the river.

The same river?

(Bithnish exhales sharply)

(dramatic orchestra music)

- Your lips I open in the god's name

that you may speak and eat.

Your eyes I open in the god's name

that light and sight may bless them.

You will raise your eyes to light eternal.

Open your mouth in speech that is soundless,

since it is the soul speech.

- You became my mother out of your goodness.

You leave me motherless

with a mother still yet to find.

Farewell.

(contemplative drums)

- [Guard] Who is it?

- Moses.

My Lord.

- It is Highness you must call me, Cousin.

Your Highness.

I have been searching for you all day and everywhere.

That is not right.

- My apologies, Your Highness.

- You promised to take me crocodile hunting.

- Ah yes, but I reconsidered.

What would have happened to me

if the crocodiles had snapped and eaten you,

and what would have happened to the throne of Egypt?

- You would have taken it.

Cousin, I am angry with you.

- No, do not be angry.

Not now.

I have come to tell you sad news.

- His Highness is not be given sad news,

that is laid down.

- My mother is dead.

Your father's sister.

- Dead, like the 3,000 men who built the great city

and the treasure city?

- Yes, there is only one way of being dead.

- You have forgotten, Prince Merneptah

the thing for which your cousin was sent here.

- Ah yes, you are to go and see the workers

to see that they are building right.

I asked my father, you see, as a punishment.

- A punishment?

- Yes, you wouldn't take me crocodile hunting.

(horses galloping)

(whip cracking) (contemplative music)

- [Man] Work!

Work, come on, work.

Work!

(gong chimes) (whip cracking)

- [Man] Whoah!

- [Miriam] Aaron, could that be Moses?

- [Moses] Is not this man too ill to work?

- He's not too ill for work if he's still working.

- What is this?

- It is, as you might say, a form of inducement

to increase effort.

- Are you a scholar?

- [Man] I was a scholar when scholarship

was allowed among the Israelites.

(music dramatically crescendos)

- Work! (whip cracking)

(dogs barking) (chickens clucking)

- [Narrator] And Moses was drawn to this people.

And he went to the city of Pithom

that he might know of the sufferings of this people.

(flies buzzing) (child crying)

(woman laughing)

- No, I can't! (cries) (man grunting)

Really, I can't!

Let me go, please!

- You should not be here, should you Dathan?

- It seems not.

But I have certain rights.

- [Man] No rights, Dathan.

- Not even the right to report to my superiors officially?

- Not even that right.

You will report when you're ordered to report.

In the meantime you have some duties to carry out.

- To attest to my own manhood?

(laughing)

- Only free men can talk of manhood.

What does Dathan the unfree have to say?

- We have no straw to make bricks.

- Use some of your own, man of straw.

(man choking) (Dathan thuds)

An example, little Dathan, an example is required.

(whip cracking) - Ah, ah! (groans)

Ah. (whip cracking)

Ah! (groans)

- Stop!

Stop, man!

What is this? (Dathan groans)

- Punishment, my Lord, for inefficiency.

For insolence, for insubordination.

- But not wanting to be a cuckold.

(whip cracking) Ah!

- I said, I said stop.

(punches) (man groans)

- [Man] Ah!

(man thuds)

Ah!

- Back to work, friends, this is none of your concern.

I have things to remember, have I not?

Bloody things.

- Wait!

This is not to be spoken of.

Do you understand?

- You killed him, and you will go away.

You will say that I did it,

they will all say that I did it!

- His heart stopped beating,

but in any case the responsibility is mine.

(group chattering)

- [Man With Beard] No, all I know is that

he went in there and then I, I--

- There is a dead Egyptian in your midst.

But you have no cause for fear.

He was killed by his own brutality.

I shall report this, you'll have no fear.

- Who are you, young man,

who speak about Egyptian brutalities?

- My name is Moses.

(dramatic orchestra music) - Moses?

(group excitedly murmuring)

- [Man] Moses?

- I have served well, my Lord,

and it is my ambition to serve better.

I would not utter the dirty word payment, of course.

- [Man] You will be paid whatever your information is worth.

Do not waste time.

- I'd thought of some small promotion.

- [Man] Do not waste time.

- I have witnesses outside to testify to the murder

of our overseer, a senseless murder if I may say so.

- [Man] Go on.

- The Lord Moses was the slayer.

- [Man] He had authority to exert discipline, go on.

- The Lord Moses has no such authority.

He is an Israelite.

He is the son of Amran and Yokebed of the tribe of Levi.

- [Man] Where did you hear this?

- He was saved by his sister in the old time

of the necessary execution of the children.

- [Man] Where did you hear this?

Where did you hear it?

- I tell no lie.

- Moses, it has come true.

Bring him.

- Is this the truth we've been waiting for?

You call it the beginning, I tell you it's the end,

it's the end for us.

For 20 years you've kept his name alive on our lips

like a, like a promise of deliverance.

And now what is he, this deliverer. (scoffs)

Just an Israelite who's killed an Egyptian.

There's no promise of anything,

except further servitude.

- The voice is a voice of a prophet, my son,

but the words are a slave's words.

- I'm not wild-eyed like my sister here.

I see things as they are.

- And when he walks into this house?

- He won't have time to walk into this house.

He'll be running for his life.

- When he walks into the house of his parents,

I shall be expected to have words,

but what words shall I have?

I do not know.

I love the child I lost,

and now I expect the pain of learning

to love the child who is found

and must once more be lost.

- [Narrator] So the boy brought Moses

to his sister Miriam for Moses was empty of all knowledge,

both of his family and of his people,

and Miriam had to fill that emptiness.

- You believe?

- I was told of a taking from the water.

My mother, as I called her, hid nothing.

That I was nourished by another's milk.

That a girl from the Israelites found me a nurse.

- I know that palace.

I can describe the chamber and the garden.

And this inscription that said he was to be born

in the house of the king.

- Who, who?

- He who was to come,

the child of the sun, they called him.

But to me he was to be more than a child of the sun.

(birds chirping)

(exhales sharply)

Will you come home?

(people murmuring excitedly)

- [Woman] Moses.

- [Man] Moses.

- [Moses] I have found a mother?

- You have found a family.

(horses galloping)

- [Man] In the name of the King,

be it known that Moses the Israelite

once falsely known as the Lord Moses

stands accused and convicted of the assassination

of a servant of the King, a free man, son of Egypt.

Let him be rendered up to authority on pain

of the execution (people yelling)

of the capital sentence

on any who may be hiding him (people screaming)

or otherwise grudging him comfort.

(people yelling)

(dogs barking)

- We should be together again in the time

of the setting free.

- You must press on. (dramatic music)

- If there is such a time.

- [Man] On pain of the execution

of the capital sentence

on any who may be hiding him

or otherwise grudging him comfort.

(tranquil vocal and orchestra music)

(container breaks)

(camel grunts)

(camel grunts)

(knife stabs)

(wind howling)

- [Narrator] And Moses came to Mount Horeb

in the land of Sinai.

(drums rhythmically banging)

♪ What will love bring when he comes ♪

♪ As he'll drink

♪ As he'll drink

♪ As we drink

♪ We dread

♪ When he comes

♪ When he comes

♪ On his head

♪ It will be crowned

♪ When he comes down from the hill ♪

- [Man] After them, get them!

- [Man] Go on, get back, back to

your own wells. (women crying)

- Go on, get away! - Back to your own land!

- This is our well. - If you have no wells,

that is not our fault.

This is our land! - Go away.

- Our water!

For us and our sheep! (women crying)

- Leave our well! - That it, back!

(women crying)

- Enough!

Enough.

- [Jethro] I used to be a priest in the town of Midian

but I grew sick of stone idols.

A man must worship - Thank you.

- Something great and simple.

I'm still looking.

I'm still looking for it.

They say that on Mount Horeb

a man can see visions of the truth.

I have seen no such visions, perhaps I am too old.

I'm (laughs) certainly too old to climb it.

- Our story, father.

- (laughs) Yes, I wonder.

It's very easily told.

The people turned against me when I turned against idols.

We are cut off.

My daughters must get water from the well

before the shepherds of Midian leave their beds.

Otherwise they will not be permitted to get water at all.

But they come earlier and earlier.

Depriving us of water has become a cruel sport.

I am grateful for what you did.

- You have said that many times already.

- [Zipporah] Gratitude is not a word.

It is the desire to keep saying the word.

- (laughs) My daughters are forward in their speech,

if not in their deeds.

How can one man prevail against so many women? (laughs)

Are you traveling further, perhaps?

- For the moment, my story ends here.

(dramatic orchestra music)

My journey has been one into exile.

(staccato orchestra chords)

Exile is everywhere

for the exiled.

- Can you do shepherd's work?

- I'd always been taught that work was for slaves.

Egypt taught me many false things.

- You must put off that word exile.

It's your people who know exile, not you.

- Yes.

I must learn to think of them as my people.

(dramatic orchestra and drum music)

(men shouting)

(slapping)

- Miriam.

- Aaron?

- I think I've seen him again.

- [God] I am the God of your father.

I have surely seen the affliction

of my people (whip cracking)

(man grimacing) that are in Egypt.

And I am come down to deliver them

and to bring them out of that land onto a good land,

flowing with milk and honey.

- Never!

(thunder rumbles) (baby cries)

- Not a life, but a token of life.

Flesh, a body will not miss.

- I want no more of this.

- You mean you want to be free

(peaceful orchestra and vocal music)

of me. (water pouring)

♪ Israel

♪ Israel

♪ Israel

♪ Israel

(peaceful chimes)